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| UEFA Euro 2012 |
UEFA Euro 2012
Over the last few decades football has strayed far from its working-class roots. Bleak rain-soaked terraces, pints of cloudy ale and half-time pies have slowly been replaced by generic stadia, overpriced continental lager and the dreaded prawn sandwich. It's become unreasonably expensive to attend top-flight matches. And supporting your nation at this year's Euro 2012 finals in Ukraine and Poland is beyond the means of most individuals. But even if you want to stay at home, and experience the competition from your sofa, controller in hand, you'll too have to pay a premium. UEFA Euro 2012 is DLC for best-selling FIFA 12, and costs 1800 MS points on Xbox LIVE and £15.99/$25.99 on the PlayStation Store. Its high price-tag isn't necessarily a criticism, but inevitably it invites greater scrutiny of what content is on offer.
When it comes to gameplay, there's very little to say. It's FIFA 12, unaltered. If you're at all familiar with that game, there's nothing new to learn or get your head around. FIFA 12 is a great game, and avoided series stagnation by incorporating several new features this year and reinventing aspects of its gameplay, such as the way in which you defend. And it's all present and correct here, ensuring the gameplay experience is of the same high quality. So what are you actually getting when you downloadUEFA Euro 2012?
The real differences are superficial. What you're paying for, ultimately, boils down to a new lick of paint and a handful of game modes. Once downloaded, Euro 2012 appears as a new tab on FIFA 12's main navigation bar. Select it, and you'll tumble down the rabbit hole and emerge into a psychedelic world saturated by the tournament's official branding. Brace yourself, though – it's dominated by a startling shade of magenta, which stains everything, like Ukrainian borscht, from the home screen to the constant scorecard. It's strikingly different, and more than a little garish when compared to FIFA's normally reserved and slick façade.
Some of the graphical tweaks have been trumpeted as "spectacular presentation", but they really amount to little more than the addition of the tournament's 8 official stadia and the match atmosphere being ratcheted up a notch or two. But confetti canons and fireworks for the victors, and a few more unfurled flags, can't really communicate the carnival of a major international tournament. And most of these additions, though well-intentioned, fade once a match begins, and you soon find yourself playing a game of FIFA 12. Yes, the commentary may occasionally allude to your striker being in contention for the Golden Boot, and yes, the branding boards might have authentic sponsors now on them, but it's all veneer. The grain hasn't been touched.
The aim, of course, is to end up with a map of Europe threaded with a dense network of roads and the ultimate European dream-team. But perhaps the most baffling of prizes awarded for a victory is a 'mosaic' piece. Every team has 3 mosaic pieces to earn, each one a photo of that nation's team in action. To collect them all you have to play and win 159 games. It's a ludicrously-weak incentive to keep slogging away at Expedition mode, and it's almost unthinkable that anyone will persevere to the point of completion. It's really difficult to regard the mosaic gimmick as anything but cynical padding, and the same goes for Expedition mode itself. Although it may represent itself as a game of strategy and tactics, it's really not much more than a seemingly-interminable fixture schedule.
The price-point of
UEFA Euro 2012 places it at the high-end of downloadable content, and simply it doesn’t offer enough to justify this weighty price-tag. When you think that once upon a time it may have been released as a standalone boxed title, it seems like a steal – an act of forward-thinking generosity made possible by digital distribution. But when it sits on digital shelves alongside the likes of the delightfully frustrating Fez and the rapturous Journey (both of which cost less), it can’t but help look unreasonably priced. Saying that, the core gameplay remains great, yet that’s because it’s indistinguishable from FIFA 12 - a game that came out 8 months ago. You’re paying a premium for authenticity, lent to the game by the official branding of the tournament, not for something that transforms the experience.
If you’re a football obsessive or a stickler for the real thing, UEFA Euro 2012 is probably worth grafting onto your existing copy of FIFA 12. But for many, the same experience can easily be approximated by playing the game they already own with a through-ball from their imagination.
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By:Sulaiman
